Another look at traffic-calming Another look at traffic-calming (April 28, 2004)

Menlo Park residents who have any interest in either slowing down or rerouting traffic around their homes should be sure to attend a meeting this Saturday at the Menlo Park Senior Center in Belle Haven, where city officials and consultants will discuss a proposed traffic management plan.

After a series of public meetings and discussion before the Transportation Commission and City Council, the city will adopt a plan to guide all efforts to establish traffic controls in any neighborhood. Presumably, the new guidelines will prevent projects like the wildly unpopular Santa Cruz Avenue redesign that eventually was torn out by an apologetic City Council and administration.

The proposed plan would create a uniform process for a neighborhood to petition for any number of traffic control devices, such as speed tables, pedestrian bulb-outs, and traffic circles. As proposed, the rules would require 60 percent of all residents in the area affected to support the call for controls. And it would be up to city officials to set the boundaries of the affected area.

Opponents of this approach say the 60 percent threshold is too strict. Some argue that petitioners should need backing only from 60 percent of residents who respond to a city mailing on proposed controls. They say non-responders should be considered neutral parties.

But after the recent experience on Santa Cruz Avenue and the effort to close off Palo Alto's Downtown North neighborhood between Middlefield Road and Alma Street, it is clear that seemingly "local" traffic controls can impact a much wider area, as motorists seek alternate routes.

For example, a recent study of cut-through traffic in the Willows shows that on some streets, about 33 percent of traffic was not local. But unless the offending traffic is forced back to arterial streets, wily commuters are likely to find other cut-through routes that are just as likely to offend residents.

Most problems with neighborhood cut-through traffic erupt around major bottlenecks on arterial streets. In Menlo Park, that means the smaller streets around the Santa Cruz Avenue/Sand Hill Road intersection, and routes along Willow Road in Belle Haven and the Willows, where frustrated motorists look for relief during rush hour.

But one person's quicker commute can create a nightmare that some residents feel seriously compromises their safety and quality of life. And while traffic controls may not be elegant, they often are the last resort available to these frustrated residents.

The city is right to seek ways for a majority of residents in a neighborhood to fend off unwanted traffic. The challenge will be to get it done fairly by giving tightly drawn, but clearly impacted, areas a remedy, without shifting the unwanted traffic burden to others.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.